Sunday, June 28, 2009

We're Cooking… and not in a good way

Dudes, it's hot. That's all I can say. We don't have air conditioning here at the Wayward house, and most of the time, that's just fine. But when the temperature gets over 90° for more than a couple days in a row with no evening breezes, it's like being in a sauna here, except that unlike a sauna, it's just as hot outside as in.

We've taken a few measures today to help keep the house cool, like blocking the sun from shining in the upper windows that don't have curtains or blinds. But seeing as it's already 88° inside, I'm guessing it's too little, too late—at least for today.

Generally, I love the heat. 75-85° is my sweet spot. Scoob, on the other hand, hates the heat. Once temperatures get around 75° he's complaining about it being "Africa hot" while I'm comfortably wearing sweatpants. I ditched the sweatpants yesterday and today I've hung a damp towel on the back of Scoob's chair. He can lean back on it whenever he wants and get a little relief.

One of our other strategies for coping with hot weather is that we don't cook when it gets this hot, though I made some yummy roasted cauliflower last week that I'm wanting to make again. Mom says, "what's the difference? Once you hit miserable, turning on the oven isn't going to change things." This from the woman who read me the riot act every time I tried to make toast for breakfast on summer mornings. But let's face it, we're not exactly craving a hot meal anyway.

So to kick off the It's Too Damn Hot to Cook collection, here's what we had for dinner last night. I've taken this to potlucks and barbecues, and it always seems to disappear.

Black Bean Salsa

Cooking time: nonePrep time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

1 15oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed

1 15oz can of black eyed peas, or white beans, drained and rinsed

1 15oz can of diced, peeled tomatoes, drained, or the equivalent, fresh

1½ cup frozen corn, thawed, or the equivalent, fresh

½ of a medium onion, chopped

½ of a red bell pepper, seeded and chopped

3 jalapeño peppers, seeded and finely chopped

1 Tbsp ground cumin

juice from 2 limes

kosher salt, to taste

chopped cilantro, to taste

Directions

Throw everything in a bowl and mix well.

Seriously, that's all. The farther in advance you make it, the more the flavors combine, but it's tasty even if you don't have time to let it sit. We don't eat a lot when it's hot like this, so this recipe works well for us, and the beans help make it filling.

Obviously, it'll taste even better with fresh ingredients, but it works well with canned/frozen staples too. We don't have a yard, so there's no way we're going to have homegrown tomatoes for this, and let's face it, fresh tomatoes from the store are just not the same, so we used the canned variety last night. Once tomatoes start coming on, I'll get fresh ones from the veggie stand for this.